"Can Johnny Come Out and (Be Taught to) Play?"

A friend sent me an interesting New York Times story that gives me pause: a new Manhattan playground design with national aspiration that calls for "play workers" to guide a child's curiosity and imagination as they explore the playscape.

One one hand, times have changed. When I was a kid, my bike was my ticket to the most wonderful places in the world. My friends and I went everywhere, and sometimes miles away (did you know that mom?) We found fallen trees whose upturned root balls created natural castles. We climbed trees, strung and swung from ropes, built makeshift bridges over streams, plucked crawfish from the water and put them on trial for invading our land, caught frogs to feed to dragons -- all in the pursuit of defending our kingdom. One of my favorite books was Katherine Paterson's "Bridge to Terabithia" (soon to be a feature film!), and much of my role play stemmed from that book. Exploration and discovery as a result of wandering, combined with my own ideas of adventure and fantasy, provided excellent fuel for my imagination.

Sadly, we no longer live in a world where children can safely go even half a block from our driveways. The thought of my own girls riding their bikes the distances I went as a child is absolutely terrifying. Hell, I've even panicked when I've lost site of them at the playground. So a place full of more than just the standard playground equipment sounds promising. But the needle scratches the record when I think about adult intervention.

Who makes for a qualified "play worker"? Won't this become a whimsical minimum wage summer job for some lackluster teen looking for extra cash? Visit any small town beach these days and you're bound to find a gaggle of "lifeguards" who are more interested in each other's company, well tanned pecs or flirty eyelashes than they are in what's happening on the beach. It's hard enough to even find qualified day care providers.

But that's beside the point. Have parents become so removed that they can't serve this purpose on the playground? I've blogged before about the moms I've seen who use the playground as a babysitter and social gathering spot as their kids run wild, but I've also seen plenty of parents who hop right in and have just as much fun as the kids. But this isn't the point either. Adults aren't supposed to imagine for children -- children are supposed to do it on their own.
I wonder what has happened to make it necessary to always jumpstart a child's imagination. While my wife and I are no strangers to kid videos, SpongeBob episodes on DVR, Web games and the like, moderation is imperative, otherwise we run the risk of raising kids who expect to be entertained instead of responsible for creating their own engagement. I cringe at the thought of my child sitting there waiting for some play worker to help them turn a pond into a lava pit that stands in the way of the beautiful castle.

Most adults left their imaginations behind when they got their driver's license. Most fantasize about new technologies that will make them even more connected and crazy (like the wonderful new iPhone!) or vacations that will help relieve the stress of a daily routine. How often does the average adult daydream about fairy princesses or trolls in the underworld? How willing is the average adult to see something that is not there, to believe something can be what it is not? So why is an adult play helper qualified to properly develop a child's imagination?

Playgrounds are supposed to provide physical recreation. Jungle gyms and monkey bars and swings and slides are all designed to promote physicality.
Thanks to a child's imagination, those staples have become so much more than just jungle gyms and monkey bars and swings and slides. No one told children in 1920 that a jungle gym was, say for example, actually a gigantic turtle's shell that needed to be surmounted to get to the magic river -- that just naturally happened as children connected the things they had heard or read or imagined to the physical structure of the jungle gym. And that's the beauty of the imagination -- like snowflakes -- no two are alike. Every child has the power to see something different, to believe that something is much more than what it seems, but to me, it's a very personal process of idea mapping and attachment with which no one should interfere.

It seems to me that what children need is the proper foundation for imagination: creative materials to use at home on their own accord and with their own rules, opportunities to role play and explore and connect their favorite Junie B. Jones story to their real world discoveries, and parents who foster and encourage creativity with both a short and long leash: sometimes hopping in to join the fun, but often standing back and letting it evolve on its own.

I missed the so-called "De-Lurking Week" but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear from you. So here's a question that may get you typing:

Is it better for a child to have no imagination at all than to be programmed to dream very specific things or play in very specific ways?

*photos from NYTimes.com